PROOFhttp://proof.nationalgeographic.com
The Stories Behind the PhotographsThu, 08 Sep 2016 16:23:29 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.158619624Proof Is on the Movehttp://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/23/proof-has-moved-to-a-new-home/
http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/23/proof-has-moved-to-a-new-home/#commentsMon, 23 May 2016 13:44:38 +0000http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/?p=31461We decided it was time for bigger images and more seamless access to the amazing stories happening across all of National Geographic, so we’ve moved to a new home.

]]>http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/23/proof-has-moved-to-a-new-home/feed/131461A Dreamy, Photographic Pilgrimage Along the Ganges Riverhttp://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/10/15000-mile-journey-captures-the-spiritual-energy-of-the-ganges-river/
http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/10/15000-mile-journey-captures-the-spiritual-energy-of-the-ganges-river/#commentsTue, 10 May 2016 13:26:14 +0000http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/?p=31334Photographer Caleb Cain Marcus began his 1,500-mile pilgrimage along the the Ganges River amid the snow-capped peaks of Gangotri, India, a Hindu pilgrim town where the massive river originates as an aquamarine stream “so narrow that you could almost hop across.”
Near Bijnor

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He’s not particularly religious, but for Marcus, following the path of the spiritually significant Ganges, which Hindus believe is synonymous with the goddess Gaṅgā herself, was an exercise in perception—in noticing the character and the energy of the atmosphere.

Near Farukkhabad

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Near Bijnor district

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“We are often so busy with our lives that we don’t pay that much attention to spaces,” he says. “I feel that the air can have a presence. If you go into a church, or a mosque, or a synagogue, there’s a change in the space. I had this idea that the space along the river was more charged, [that] there was more density. Maybe the Ganges always had this energy around it, or maybe the people who have been praying along it have changed the space.”

Uttar Pradesh

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Hapur district

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He’s not trying provide concrete answers to his postulations but instead to experience the energy in the air and somehow translate it into photographs.

Near Kolkata

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Uttar Pradesh

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For 44 days, Marcus followed the river—mostly by car but also on foot and by boat —through small villages that often go unnamed on a map and rarely have foreign visitors. As he progressed, the river widened, more people began to appear, industry increased (so did pollution), and the hills leveled out. He captured these subtle changes in scenery in his signature style—quiet, bright, and enveloped in fog.

Varanasi

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Bihar

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Marcus also keeps his distance. The people who trickle into his images toward the end of his journey appear on an ant-like scale. He’s not interested in the individual but in how people function as a collective organism.

Near Soron

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“It’s more about the form and the movement and the dance of the people—the color and the melody they create,” he says. “I think it also goes back to the relationship between humans and the universe. To have the scale of the people [be] small fits with my personal ideology: For me the landscape is as important as the people are, maybe more important.”

Farukkhabad

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Marcus’s journey came to an end when the Ganges met the ocean at Sagar Island in the Bay of Bengal, another pilgrimage site for Hindus. The boat trip there was a little scary (“You can definitely imagine the boat sinking. It’s way beyond capacity, and the boats are very old.”). But the satisfaction of arriving at the end was well worth it.

Uttar Pradesh

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“I was happy walking along this beach and seeing the culmination of both my journey and the river’s journey,” he says. “You see this great horizon when you get to the end of the island, [which] faces the ocean. It’s just this expanse. That’s what she flows into, and maybe that’s what we flow into as well when we cease to exist on this world.”

]]>http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/10/15000-mile-journey-captures-the-spiritual-energy-of-the-ganges-river/feed/1731334Boise, Idaho, A Global Home for Refugeeshttp://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/09/angie-smith-boise-idaho-refugees/
http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/09/angie-smith-boise-idaho-refugees/#commentsMon, 09 May 2016 15:08:31 +0000http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/?p=31302When photographer Angie Smith visited her parents in the picturesque northwestern town of Boise, Idaho, approximately five years ago, she had no idea how it would lead to a future photography project. While she was there, Smith began to notice a growing presence of refugees in Boise.

Boise has a surprisingly large number of refugees from Bhutan, Sudan, Somalia, and more. Smith says that she would often see refugees walking to and from the grocery store, laundromat, or other common places in town.

Patrick and Derek Seale Bakwa from the Democratic Republic of the Congo stand in the neighborhood of their adopted parents’ home in Boise. They moved to Boise six years ago. As children, they were left to fend for themselves in Kinshasa after both of their parents died.

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“Idaho is one of the last places you’d expect to see refugees,” she says. “There’s a visual contrast between the backdrop of Boise—which is a mix of beautiful, lush outdoor locations and classic suburban new developments—and these refugees, many of whom wear traditional clothing.”

To Smith, this seemed like an ideal photo story. But she didn’t expect the roadblocks she’d encounter. Smith started reaching out to organizations in Boise but had little luck in making solid connections.

Sar Bah Bi is a refugee from Burma who moved to Idaho five years ago. She met her husband, a refugee from Somalia when she was a junior in high school. They fell in love despite the fact that they were both just learning English—the only language they could communicate in. They are now married and have started a business selling their own produce at the Capitol City Farmer’s Market in downtown Boise.

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“Refugees’ lives are very sensitive, and some of them could be in danger, so a lot of the organizations wanted to keep their lives private,” she says. “Even back then I knew it was going to be a really important project.”

Discouraged by her inability to gain access to the communities in Boise, Smith stopped pursuing the project and went on with her life.

Rita Thara stands in the foothills of Boise’s East End. Rita is a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo. She has lived in Boise for four years. When civil war broke out in 1997 she almost lost her life fleeing Kinshasa. Rita’s father was shot and killed by militia. Rita started a fashion business called Thara Fashion in Boise.

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A year or so later is when a breakthrough came. Smith tore her MCL on a skiing trip and returned to Boise to recover. While she was there, she met a Congolese refugee named Rita, and the two became fast friends.

Rita opened doors for Smith that had previously been closed, and Smith began the slow and time-intensive process of building relationships with many of the individual refugee communities. According to Smith, the Congolese community in particular is robust, and she says that they are some of the most welcoming people she’s encountered.

Tito Ndayishimiye is a 21 year old filmmaker who has lived in Boise since he was 11. He was born in Rwanda and moved to Tanzania to live in a refugee camp for 10 years until his family was sent to Boise. He works full time at a call center during the day and runs his own thriving filmmaking business on this side.

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Smith says that she began to offer the refugees the opportunity to have a formal family portrait taken, something that many of them would not have had access to before. With the help of a writer named Hanne Steen, she also began interviewing her subjects after photographing them to document their story.

Alfonse stands outside of her apartment building in Boise, Idaho wearing a dress that she designed and sewed. Alfonse moved to Boise eight years ago from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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“We would not only talk about their past, but their present lives, what it was like to adjust to life in America, what it’s like to live in Idaho, how they envision their future and how that has changed,” she says. “There’s an almost emotional and spiritual exchange that happens. After I photograph someone, they become my friend. I’ve gotten to know the most incredible people through this process.”

Khamisa Fadul sits in her kitchen with her children while she studies for her nursing program. Khamisa is a refugee from Sudan who has lived in Boise for eight years. She works at a local sporting goods company and also has her own business importing and selling Sudanese crafts.

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She says that at the time, refugees didn’t dominate the news the way they do today. Few people understood their plight and struggles or even understood the concept of being a refugee.

Smith says that she wanted the portraits to show the contrast between Boise’s surroundings and the distinct style of each refugee.

Sonia Ekemon adjusts her head wrap in the front yard of her home in a suburb outside of Boise. Sonia is a former refugee from Togo. She has lived in Boise for 18 years and is now an American citizen. She has worked full time in several local Boise hospitals but recently realized her dream of opening her own hair-braiding business.

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“I think people often have this perception that Idaho just has potatoes and white supremacists, along with a few other stereotypes,” Smith says. “I wanted to highlight the beauty of Idaho, but I also try to photograph the refugees wearing some article of clothing that they used to wear in their home country. I want the pictures to be a real representation of who they are.”

Burmese twins Paw Lah Say and Paw Lah Htoo on their 25th birthday, less than a month after arriving in Boise. After fleeing persecution in Burma, they lived in an enclosed refugee camp in Thailand for 13 years.

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For Smith, who is currently raising money through Kickstarter to fund future iterations of the project, this project has also been incredibly rewarding on a personal level.

“Every aspect of working with the refugee community has brought me joy and a greater sense of connection and community,” she says. “My hope is that people will feel that same sense of inspiration and heart expansion. I want it to bring people together and change people’s perceptions of refugees. I want the pictures to show the diversity and the incredible contributions that the refugees are making to the Boise community. I want people to invite refugees into their lives.”

]]>http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/09/angie-smith-boise-idaho-refugees/feed/3131302The Shots Seen Round the World: Origins of a Viral Photohttp://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/06/daniel-etter-refugee-pulitzer-viral-photos/
http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/06/daniel-etter-refugee-pulitzer-viral-photos/#commentsFri, 06 May 2016 13:32:09 +0000http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/?p=31268The first photograph I saw by Daniel Etter wasn’t in a magazine or newspaper or even on a website. It was on Twitter. In May 2013, Istanbul was erupting in protests. News of it was dominating social media—and all of a sudden this stunning image of a protestor holding the Turkish flag appeared on my feed. I was instantly struck by the mood and defiant body language of the protestor, who was surrounded by tear gas. It was timeless and epic. The photo went viral, as it should have, and was reproduced all over the world. It’s even a statue now. “I lost control of it quickly,” Etter told me.

Etter has a knack for making viral photos. A photographer is lucky to have it happen once; it’s almost unheard of for it to happen again. Yet it did—only this time the subject matter was the refugee crisis, and the photo just won Etter the Pulitzer Prize. I recently talked to him and started at the beginning.

Laith Majid, an Iraqi refugee from Baghdad, breaks out in tears of joy, holding his son Taha and his daughter Nour after they arrived safely on a beach on the Greek island of Kos on August 15, 2015. The group crossed over from the Turkish resort town of Bodrum, and on the way their flimsy rubber boat, crammed with about 12 men, women, and children, lost air.

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PATRICK WITTY: So, why photography?

DANIEL ETTER: I think a lot of photojournalists my age [Etter is 35] will tell you the same story: The seed was planted when I watched the documentary “War Photographer,” about James Nachtwey. Back then, I was impressed by the image of the lone photographer in constant pursuit of that one image that shapes world events. I knew that this is what I wanted to do.

Over the years that romanticized idea faded and was replaced by a more sober image of the impact photographers can have. It took me a very long time to actually summon up the courage and go out in the world and do it.

Afghan boys gather used munition after a training shoot of Belgian forces near Kunduz, Afghanistan, April 5, 2011.

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PATRICK: You’re German and you live in Spain, but most of your work is in the Middle East. How did that happen?

DANIEL: After I moved to India and worked there for a while, I slowly made my way back [to the] West. First I moved to Istanbul, then to Berlin. I just felt drawn home, I guess. But after a few weeks in miserable Berlin weather, I decided to move south.

I find it difficult living in the middle of the stories I am covering. I need distance from it. Here in Spain I have that, while I am not too far away geographically.

And if you think about it, so much of today’s big journalistic stories happen around the Mediterranean. The Arab Spring, the refugee crisis in the Aegean and between Libya and Italy, the financial crisis in Greece. So most of my work is centered around the Mediterranean and so is my life. I just choose a quieter corner.

A protester throws a tear gas canister back at the police in Istanbul, Turkey, on June 1, 2013. Tens of thousands of people gathered to protest against the destruction of Gezi Park in central Istanbul and to voice general discontent with the government’s policies.

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PATRICK: You’ve had a couple of photos go completely viral in the past few years. The photo you made during the Gezi Park protest in Istanbul has been everywhere, appropriated time and time again. Tell me about making that photo.

DANIEL: I was on the way to do a story in the Ukraine when the Gezi protests started. When I landed in Kiev I checked the news and decided to turn around right away. This was happening right in front of my apartment in Istanbul and was much bigger than any of the usual protests in the city.

The night I returned, protesters marched towards the office of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was then still prime minister. Police tried to push them back with tear gas. Even though I was wearing a gas mask it was difficult to breathe.

The protesters built barricades out of mobile fences from a nearby football stadium, but the tear gas was so heavy that most stayed far back behind the barricades. There was one guy, who kept climbing up this pile of metal fences alone and waved the Turkish flag until he collapsed. This was the scene that went viral.

A mother poses with her newborn in a school that houses around 150 refugees that fled the violence in Aleppo, Syria.

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PATRICK: I saw the photo you posted of someone with a tattoo of this image. What’s it like to see your image reproduced over and over again? And made into a statue?

DANIEL: On the one hand, it’s obviously very humbling and satisfying to see that this image meant so much for so many people. On the other hand, I feel slightly melancholic about it. The Gezi protest marked a turning point in the recent history of Turkey and not in the way the protesters had hoped.

Erdogan’s government is more authoritarian than ever and the level of oppression of critical voices—be it journalists, scientists, artists—has never been higher in recent years. Something like Gezi would be unthinkable today. Even small, peaceful protests, if they are only slightly diverging from the government’s line, are met with water cannons and tear gas from the outset.

Durse (left), 12, and Nunu, 6, play with slingshots at a coal miners’ camp in the Jainitia Hills in the Indian state of Meghalaya, October 21, 2010. Durse works in the mines. According to the NGO Impulse there are 70,000 children working in life-threatening conditions in the coal mines in the Jaintia Hills.

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PATRICK: Why do you think that image resonated with people?

DANIEL: The protest was an act of defiance in the face of this looming—and by now very real—authoritarianism. And for them, this feeling was reflected in the posture of the lone protester on the barricades. He was almost the perfect metaphor for the struggle to uphold the ideals of the Turkish Republic, no matter the push back.

PATRICK: And your heart-wrenching photo of Iraqi refugee Laith Majid and his family landing in Lesbos. That went viral also—why do you think?

DANIEL: It was very early on, when media attention just started to focus on the high number of refugees coming from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan towards the Greek islands. The public knew that refugees were coming by boat, but the realization [of] what it meant to cross in these flimsy boats in the middle of the night had not sunken in yet.

When I photographed the scene, it was still very dark. I knew that this was a moment I needed to photograph, but I was struggling to get the picture in focus—the autofocus of my camera didn’t work under these low light conditions, and people were moving a lot.

Libyans celebrate the fall of Muammar Qaddafi in Tripoli, Libya, on September 2, 2011.

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It took me a while to realize how powerful this moment was, and a few hours later I was suddenly overcome by the emotions of it, which I carried around for days.

So I knew what it meant to me but was still overwhelmed by the reactions it triggered. It was shared millions of times on Facebook and Twitter; dozens of people offered to help. And, according to the family, a number of countries offered them asylum.

DANIEL: In our profession, you are confronted with countless heartbreaking stories. Most often, you don’t let them get close to you. You are there … in a professional capacity after all. Being overly emotional doesn’t help much. But some stories, some moments, you just can’t help it. This was one of those moments.

An Afghan refugee eats fruit from a tree in a field outside Subotica, Serbia, on November 7, 2012. Many refugees and migrants try to get from Greece through the Balkans to northern parts of the European Union.

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PATRICK: Laith’s story took a sad turn after their family’s arrival in Germany. Tell me about that.

DANIEL: Berlin, where they were, was overwhelmed by the number of asylum seekers, and conditions there are chaotic. Applications are postponed over and over again, housing is often overcrowded, and nobody really knows if they have [prospects] in Germany or not.

A few weeks ago, Laith’s mother died. The combination of all these things apparently hit him so [hard] that he decided to return to Iraq to say goodbye to his mother. His wife wouldn’t let him go alone, so they and their youngest children went together.
They couldn’t return to Baghdad, their hometown, since they were threatened and extorted by militias there, which is why they fled in the first place. Now they live in Erbil in northern Iraq and are struggling to rebuild their lives, which is incredibly difficult [as Arabs] in a predominantly Kurdish city.

Ironically, I found out about this when I tried to call them after my colleagues and I won the Pulitzer Prize. The photo was part of our entry of work we produced for the New York Times on the refugee crisis. I wanted to share the news with them and couldn’t get through by phone on their German number. A few days later I found out why.

Dawriya Makhsin (middle) leans in to her sister Hadla Makhsin as they wait for a train toward the border with Croatia at the train station in Presevo, Serbia, on November 22, 2015. They and their family are Yazidi refugees from Sinjar, Iraq. Photograph by Daniel Etter/UNHCR

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PATRICK: You’ve been covering the refugee crisis for some time now. What has drawn you to that story so deeply?

DANIEL: I [first] thought of it as a singular story about people enduring incredible hardships in the hope of reaching the prosperity and security we in Europe or the U.S. are privileged enough to be accustomed to. This fascinated me in itself.
But now I see it more as a symptom of a larger, very worrying development. The resources we have on this planet are limited and it’s simply impossible for seven billion people to reach the standard of living we in the West enjoy. Climate change is already having an impact. Mix that with corrupt and authoritarian leadership and you have an explosive combination.

I was in Raqqa Province in Syria recently, and all you see there are dusty fields and overgrazed pasture. I don’t imply that the Syrian civil war was caused by climate change, but I am quite certain this was a factor that played into it. And I feel like there will be many more conflicts where this will be the case.

As long as we don’t manage to find a way to confront and solve these problems globally, find a way to distribute resources and wealth more justly, people will be on the move, away from poverty and insecurity, to wealth and stability. The logical but inhumane short-term reaction to this is to build walls and fences, but in the long run we need solutions that go to the core of this development. Unfortunately, what we see in Germany, France, or the U.S. is the rise of political parties or figures that go in the completely opposite direction.

Delsher, a fighter with the People’s Protection Units (Kurdish: Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, YPG) lets a dove fly at a YPG position near the Tishrin Dam in Syria on February 17, 2016.

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PATRICK: And now you are a farmer? Sounds pretty nice.

DANIEL: It is! It’s a small farm in northern Spain—woodland, orchards, and some fields. It’s not yet producing commercially, but I am planning to turn it into a small-scale organic operation. In a way, it is a response to the thought I just laid out. The way we produce and consume food in Europe and the U.S. is simply impossible to sustain on a global scale. But apart from that, I really enjoy being there. It is the perfect place to come back to.

]]>http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/06/daniel-etter-refugee-pulitzer-viral-photos/feed/531268Life in New York’s Chinatown—Unscriptedhttp://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/05/life-in-new-yorks-chinatown-unscripted/
http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/05/life-in-new-yorks-chinatown-unscripted/#commentsThu, 05 May 2016 12:26:04 +0000http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/?p=31239“I had dinner with the Lams last night. It was probably the 300th time,” says Thomas Holton, a photographer who’s been documenting one family—mother Shirley, father Steven, and their three kids, Michael, Franklin, and Cindy—for 13 years.
Conversation, 2005

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Holton first met the Lam family in 2003 while accompanying a housing advocacy organization on home visits to immigrant families around New York City’s Chinatown neighborhood. He was a graduate student looking for a way to photograph behind Chinatown’s closed doors—and to explore his own Chinese heritage (Holton’s mother is Chinese, his father American).

Drying Laundry, 2004

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While most of the families he met were wary of return visits after allowing him to photograph them once, the Lams welcomed him into their tenement apartment on Ludlow Street with open arms. Shirley, whose kids were two, five, and six at the time, invited him back for dinner. “They chose me,” he says.

Super Girl, 2015

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He slowly became part of their lives, bonding over Shirley’s home-cooked meals. Holton was reminded of family dinners with his grandparents and cousins—all of whom spoke Chinese. “It felt strangely normal to be lost while other people spoke a language you didn’t know,” he says.

Dinner for Seven, 2011

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A typical afternoon would involve Holton showing up after class, going with Shirley to pick up the kids from school, and shopping for groceries. Back at the apartment, she would cook and he would entertain the kids—also giving Shirley and Steven some time to catch up when he got home from work. Holton was like a nanny, he says, or an uncle.

Flowers in the Tub, 2005

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Holton prefers to take his time as a photographer. And there is little that will make you slow down like spending time with the same family, mostly inside the same 400-square-foot apartment, alert for fresh moments to reveal themselves. His early pictures reflect the energy of the time—the kids were small and things were chaotic in the small space. The family all slept together in one communal bed.

Break Time, 2010

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He took a break for a few years though remained in touch. When he started photographing them again in 2010, things had changed. The boys had become teenagers. Steven had lost his job during the recession and Shirley had taken a live-in job caring for an elderly woman. She lived there with their daughter, Cindy, while Steven and the boys were on Ludlow Street. The air was tense. The bedroom had been reconfigured with bunkbeds, each separated by sheets as a way to create private space.

Front Door, 2004

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The tone of his photographs changed too. But rather than approach the story in a straight documentary style, Holton chose to pull back. “There is something about being [in] the home with them for a few hours—boredom kicks in, something natural occurs, the right light, right position,” he says. “As a photographer, I think it’s really amazing what a quiet, nuanced, melancholy photograph can say,” he says. “I don’t want to put the whole story in the picture. It is a narrative; one photo leads to the next. As kids got older they became more involved in screens, wanted to be alone. They became calmer, more reflective.”

Bored, 2011

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Fast forward to the present. One of the sons is now in college and the other lives in the Ludlow Street apartment. Steven and Shirley are divorced and Steven has his own apartment in Jersey City.

Holton is taking another pause from photographing right now—”I learned to let some time go by to let the narrative flow,” he says—but still brings his camera along on his regular visits with them, just in case. And now when he does photograph, his focus is mainly on Cindy, who is “a willing accomplice” he says, even though “right now she’s just like ‘whatever’—a totally sassy, snarky teenager.”

Life has changed for Holton too, over these past 13 years. He got married (Cindy was the flower girl at his wedding), and he became a father. And what has he learned?

Spring Break, 2010

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“I’ve discovered life is messy. It’s unscripted. I thought I would be better able to understand what it’s like to be a Chinese immigrant, but the Lam’s story really is about family. I think why it resonates is that many people can relate to it regardless of race or region. It’s about a family trying to do their best for their kids. ”

Thomas Holton’s photographs of the Lam family have recently been published as a book, The Lams of Ludlow Street. You can also see more from the project on Holton’s website.

]]>http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/05/life-in-new-yorks-chinatown-unscripted/feed/731239Heed the Call of the Wild at This Ethereal Wolf Sanctuaryhttp://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/04/heed-the-call-of-the-wild-at-this-ethereal-wolf-sanctuary/
http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/04/heed-the-call-of-the-wild-at-this-ethereal-wolf-sanctuary/#commentsWed, 04 May 2016 11:00:13 +0000http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/?p=31200Tucked into a lush swath of woods in Washington’s South Puget Sound—where light filters through mossy trees and ravens circle overhead—sits Wolf Haven International. The 82-acre sanctuary is home to 56 residents, including gray wolves, coyotes, wolf dogs, endangered Mexican gray wolves, and critically endangered red wolves.
Lonnie, a gray wolf, was found roaming a cemetery in Los Angeles before he was taken in at Wolf Haven International.

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Photographer Annie Marie Musselman, who built her artistic career telling the story of an animal rehabilitation center, first learned of Wolf Haven in 2010. She had received a grant from Getty Images to collaborate with an ad agency on a project for a nonprofit. Her original plan to document rescued chimps and orangutans in Indonesia was called off when she became pregnant and doctors encouraged her to find a story closer to home. She scoured the Internet and discovered the important conservation work Wolf Haven was doing in her very own state through their breeding program. “If it weren’t for these captive breeding and recovery programs,” she says, “Mexican gray and red wolves would not exist today.” The haven became her new focus.

Moss, a highly endangered Mexican gray wolf, is the father to one of the litters of Mexican gray wolf pups born in 2015 at Wolf Haven.

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As soon as she laid eyes on the wolves in the sanctuary, she was enchanted. “Wolves have a way of disarming you,” she says. “They are quiet and contemplative, yet fierce and powerful. You can feel that they are in this very moment—they don’t miss anything.”

Ladyhawk, a female gray wolf at Wolf Haven International

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Despite the fact that all of her interactions with the canids were buffered by a chain link fence, when she first began photographing them, she was intimidated. “I felt as if they could see through me,” she says. “I could feel them saying, ‘We don’t want to be photographed—leave us alone!’”

Klondike, a wolf dog, spent the first seven years of his life on an eight-foot drag chain attached to a post at an Alaskan roadside attraction. Here, he basks in the evening light in the large enclosure he shares with a female gray wolf named Shali.

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Kiawatha, a gray wolf, naps in the midday sun.

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She didn’t let that deter her. Instead she spent long summer days in her father’s old fold-up artist chair, giving the wolves a chance to accept her presence. “I shoot with short lenses, so I would wait for the wolves to come close. I pretended not to be interested at first. As soon as I walked away, I would turn around and there they were at the fence, smelling me, staring at me. When I [came back], they would disappear again. All the wolves did this for weeks, until finally they began to trust me.” She’s been photographing them for six years now.

Lorenzo, a Mexican gray wolf or ”el lobo,” was born at the Detroit Zoological Institute. As part of the Mexican gray wolf Species Survival Program, he and his brother Diablo became permanent residents of Wolf Haven in 2004.

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Riley, a gray wolf (now deceased), moves through his enclosure in search of food.

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Her images of the haven embody the meditative patience she used to photograph it. They’re ethereal and lightweight, less like static pictures and more like breath—a glimpse of a being that you know is there but that you can’t predict or control. “I want to show how they glow, that they embody something precious, something very knowing,” she says. “I try to show what it might feel like to be close to them, to be accepted by them.”

Shadow (front) lived in four different homes in the first few months of his life before coming to Wolf Haven. Behind is Juno, a wolf dog and Shadow’s partner.

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Portrayed perpetually in the golden hour, the haven looks like a wolf’s paradise. Through it we get a sense of the wolves’ rugged and independent spirit—what the world might be like if they roamed free. But there’s always a tension. The diamond pattern crisscrossing every few frames reminds us that for wolves, freedom is restricted. To help save them (even if it is from our own destruction), we have to contain them … at least for now.

Jesse, a female gray wolf and her partner, Shilo, a wolf dog (both now deceased), play together like childhood friends.

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Caedus, a wolf dog and his partner, Ladyhawk, a gray wolf, participate in innocuous posturing. Wolves often use facial expressions and body language to communicate emotions.

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Musselman also plays with the tension inherent in the complex nature of wolves—at once playful and fierce, untamed and communal. It’s that interplay that makes them such controversial creatures—creatures that were once targets of federal extermination programs, creatures that some people still want to hunt, that others would prefer to let fade away, and still others fight heartily to save.

Bart, a male gray wolf

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But even within the enclosure, Mussleman manages to reveal a world unto itself, leaving us with a visceral sense of reverence for an animal that feels so familiar and so unknown. “To be in their presence,” she says ,“is to be with true wildness—it is breathtaking.”

]]>http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/04/heed-the-call-of-the-wild-at-this-ethereal-wolf-sanctuary/feed/5931200Old School Persian Photography With a Modern Twisthttp://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/03/old-school-persian-photography-with-a-modern-twist/
http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/03/old-school-persian-photography-with-a-modern-twist/#commentsTue, 03 May 2016 14:04:33 +0000http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/?p=31172Naser al-Din, the longest reigning shah of the Qajar Dynasty, was known to be one of the great patrons of photography in Persia. After bringing one of the first cameras to Iran, he proceeded to photograph his family members, attendants, pets, even himself, with commendable zeal. Three court photographers and a fully functioning photo studio were all established under his rule. Iran’s extraordinarily rich photographic tradition thrived.

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Tehran-based artist Shadi Ghadirian is one of the many Iranian photographers who continues to draw from the strong tradition of image making that Naser al-Din helped build. She was only a student at the University of Azad when she came across 19th-century studio portraits of women and men from the Qajar era—several of which were produced under his reign—at the National Museum of Photography in Tehran. The work, with its rich, painted backdrops and bold poses, stuck with Ghadirian and she eventually went on to adopt the style of photography for her dissertation project.

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“I wanted to show the existing contrasts and contradictions for the young generation of Iranian women, so I renewed the old part of the photographs and combined it with the elements of today’s life,” Ghadirian told me over e-mail.

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The final product of Ghadirian’s approach was the critically acclaimed Qajar series that consists of historical studio-style portraits of women—many of them who are the artist’s family members or friends—dressed in the 19th-century Qajar style and equipped with props from the present. (Many of the items that the subjects are holding, such as a Pepsi can and a boom box, were considered taboo in Iran in the late nineties, thus adding a delightfully anachronistic twist to the work.)

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The work is also largely successful because of how historically accurate these portraits look. “There are so many little points of reference—from the pose to the outfits­—to the 19th-century portraits in this series, and it is only when you familiarize yourself with the history of Persian photography [that you can] appreciate Ghadirian’s attention to detail,” Kristen Gresh, the curator of the touring exhibit “She Who Tells a Story,” now currently up at the National Museum of Women in Arts in Washington, D.C., told me over the phone.

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Qajar, which has been exhibited and published quite extensively since 1998, continues to resonate with audiences all around the world even today. The work’s enduring quality is why Gresh decided to include it in the show, even though it was made almost twenty years ago. “People are [still] very drawn to this work,” she told me. “The work automatically raises a lot of questions. It tackles the tension between the public persona and the private life with a sense of humor and that, I think, is a key part to what makes it successful.”

]]>http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/03/old-school-persian-photography-with-a-modern-twist/feed/931172Photo of the Day: Best of Aprilhttp://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/02/photo-of-the-day-best-of-april-3/
http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/02/photo-of-the-day-best-of-april-3/#commentsMon, 02 May 2016 10:40:09 +0000http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/?p=31126Photography can show us reality in a wonderful way. But sometimes, reality is more beautiful than we can even imagine. One of the best words to describe this month’s Photo of the Day images is surreal. A delicate waterfall in Mauritius, a regal lion on the Serengeti, and a painterly aerial of a watershed in Iceland all make us believe that dreams are real.

This white pelican casts a demure, sidelong glance in the direction of Your Shot member Marco Schaffner’s lens. The ungainly bird is not known for its beauty, but with its average nine-foot wingspan, it is graceful in flight. White pelicans soar and glide, rather than flap their wings, making it easier for them to travel often long distances to catch enough fish to feed their chicks.

During Holi, the Hindu festival of color, in Vrindavan, India, two elderly women sit serenely, blanketed in the brightly colored powders that are tossed about during the celebrations. Social codes are often relaxed during the festival. “About 5,000 widows live in Vrindavan,” says Your Shot member Tatiana Sharapova. “The society [has slowly changed] its position toward widows, and a couple years ago, they were allowed to [participate in] Holi.”

To Your Shot member Bjorn Persson, the majestic pose struck by this lion in Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park recalls a scene in a well-known movie. “When I saw this big male appearing on the top of the rock,” says Persson, “I immediately connected it to the The Lion King scene, and I also felt it was one of the best photo opportunities I had ever had. The composition, the light, the background, and everything came together in what is probably my best picture ever. The pride and power of these magnificent creatures really shine through in its pose and expression.”

Water in Iceland’s Ölfusá River flows around sandbars toward the Atlantic Ocean. The Ölfusá is Iceland’s largest river, and its watershed drains 2,355 square miles (or one-seventh of Iceland). According to a study by the University of Arizona, parts of Iceland are rising as much as 1.3 inches a year as its ice cap melts away. See more pictures of climate change from above on Proof.

Over 93 days in 2014, National Geographic photographer Jim Brandenburg shot springtime images in his home state of Minnesota. This image of a swallowtail butterfly on a birch tree was captured on day 84 of his project.

Namibia, on Africa’s southwest coast, is a large country with a harsh landscape. The towering and constantly shifting dunes of the Namib Desert, shown here in this aerial photo submitted by Your Shot member Julian Walter, run right to the Atlantic Ocean and can reach up to a thousand feet high.

A hiker is dwarfed by the massive proportions of Hang Son Doong, the largest cave in the world, located in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park in Vietnam. It is more than two miles long and, at some places, more than 600 feet high. Where the ceiling has collapsed, allowing sunlight to spill in, vegetation grows heartily.

A seaweed blenny—a small and usually bottom-dwelling fish recognizable by the branchlike cirri above its eyes—watches from the safety of its hiding spot. This underwater image was taken off the coast of Brazil and submitted by Your Shot community member Dan Lublinski.

In Finland, a scattering of trees draped in heavy snow crosses the landscape, and the northern lights toss ribbons of color across the sky. This image was shared by Your Shot member Satu Javonen, who writes, “[It was] a magical night in Lapland.”

Janna Dotschkal is the editor of Photo of the Day, a curated look at photography from around National Geographic, including the magazine and our photo community, Your Shot. Liane DiStefano writes the captions and titles.

]]>http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/05/02/photo-of-the-day-best-of-april-3/feed/1431126Tragedy on Everest Remembered in Pictureshttp://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/29/a-tragedy-on-everest-remembered-in-pictures/
http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/29/a-tragedy-on-everest-remembered-in-pictures/#commentsFri, 29 Apr 2016 13:46:45 +0000http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/?p=31103A year ago photographer Roberto Schmidt stared at a wall of snow, took three photos, dove into a tent, and nearly died. On assignment for Agence France-Presse, Schmidt was at Base Camp on Mount Everest on April 25, 2015, the day that a disastrous earthquake and ensuing avalanche struck. After being partially buried in snow, Schmidt was pulled from his tent by a Sherpa guide and proceeded to make photographs that were published all over the world. Those photos were recently awarded the prestigious World Press Photo award. Speaking to him recently, I asked him to reflect back on that tragic day—and on life since then.
Rescuers use stretchers to carry the injured at Everest Base Camp after an earthquake-triggered avalanche crashed through parts of the camp, killing 18 people.

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PATRICK WITTY: It’s been a year—is the memory still vivid?

ROBERTO SCHMIDT: The sounds and feelings of being approached by a monster of nature, being tossed around without any control, can still be very vivid. Probably just as scary as the incredible silence in the immediate aftermath. However, I think that memory does fade with time, and that may be a good thing. It’s probably the way the human mind deals with strong, shocking memories.

ROBERTO: I feel incredibly lucky. Really, what are the odds of surviving an avalanche? It’s sad because at least 18 people died in the avalanche that fateful day, but only one person in our small party (a porter known as Bhanja) was hurt bad enough that he had to be airlifted out of base camp. He is now well and back to normal. We were very lucky indeed; others were not.

Sherpas and other climbers try to help an injured porter moments after the avalanche struck Base Camp. The twin quakes that struck Nepal on April 25 and May 12 killed more than 8,600 people.

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Rescuers carry a Sherpa injured by the avalanche that flattened parts of Everest Base Camp. Victims of the avalanche were airlifted out of the camp.

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PATRICK: And your camera?

ROBERTO: The photo gear was, for the most part, spared from any damage, which gave me the chance to document the aftermath of the tragedy. The gear was encased in a block of tightly packed snow. Maybe that kept it from being damaged.

Rescuers tend to a Sherpa injured by the avalanche.

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PATRICK: Has your perspective on what you do changed?

ROBERTO: I am a photojournalist, and that is what I have done for over 20 years. Part of our job is to go to places where others don’t go or can’t go and tell the true story of what transpires in the clearest and most honest way. I am still committed to … doing my job as best I can while keeping risks at a minimum. In that sense I am pretty much the same person.

Rocks are kept over flattened tents at Base Camp to cover the bodies of some of the people who died in the avalanche a day earlier.

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However, I think it is impossible to remain unchanged by an event like this. Only time will show what real effects this experience had on me. For now, I take stock of weaknesses and strengths that came through that day so that I can do better personally and professionally as I move forward.

The Khumbu region of northeastern Nepal is a magnificently beautiful, soulful, and peaceful place. I was not able to return to the area this spring due to work schedule issues but plan to go back very soon to keep documenting the amazing region and its resilient, hard-working and vastly underpaid group of Nepalese guides that make it possible for outsiders to come and enjoy the wonder of nature that the Himalayas are.

Buddhist prayer flags flutter in the wind near tents as a rescue helicopter takes off from Everest Base Camp. Rescuers faced a race against time to find survivors.

]]>http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/29/a-tragedy-on-everest-remembered-in-pictures/feed/931103At This Arctic Boarding School, Kids Dream of the Tundrahttp://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/28/nenets-russia-boarding-school/
http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/28/nenets-russia-boarding-school/#commentsThu, 28 Apr 2016 10:27:35 +0000http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/?p=31071When Japanese photographer Ikuru Kuwajima was exploring the Russian village of Vorkuta, he stumbled across something unexpected: a boarding school for nomadic Nenets children. The Nenets are a reindeer-herding indigenous group who roam the arctic regions of Russia, and the school was established so that Nenets children could get acquainted with the Russian language and culture.
Children stand inside a mini chum, the typical tent used in the tundra by the Nenets.

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Kuwajima says that he was drawn to the bright colors and singular features of the school. “The interior was very unique and almost surreal—in other schools, you wouldn’t see such ornaments, children’s drawings, mini chums [smaller versions of the Nenets’ mobile tents], reindeer horns, and some handmade mini-sledges and clay-made reindeer.”

A student at the boarding school holds up reindeer horns. Reindeer herding is an essential part of the Nenets culture.

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But to photograph the school and its students, Kuwajima was told that he’d need a permit from the local government. He remained persistent during the drawn-out process—it took nearly ten months of negotiation to get permission.

The students’ family members park their sleds and reindeer outside when visiting the boarding school in Vorkuta, Russia.

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When he finally returned, Kuwajima got to experience Nenets culture firsthand. He says that at first the children were very shy—especially the girls—but over time they warmed up to him.

A student holds a globe in a classroom at the boarding school. The children are taught both Russian and Nenets grammar and writing.

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“When a Russian teacher introduced me to all the kids, she jokingly said something like, ‘Today, we have a guest from Japan. Maybe he looks like you guys …” But they chorused, ‘No!’” he says. “Actually, some local Russians in Vorkuta occasionally thought I was a Nenets, but the Nenets kids saw the difference right away and saw me as a stranger. But overall, I think I got along with them in the end.”

A student wears the traditional costume of the Nenets.

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According to Kuwajima, if the children remained with their families in the tundra for the entire year, it would be difficult for them to keep up with their studies, let alone learn about Russian culture.

“Their families have a nomadic lifestyle and travel with their reindeer around the tundra, so if the children are with their parents, it would be very hard to get even a primary education—their life is very isolated from the outside world,” he says. “Also, they have their own Nenets language, and otherwise they wouldn’t learn Russian, which their parents think is increasingly important for their kids to learn. That’s why there is a boarding school to host the children and give them an education.”

Nenets children are visited by a family member at the boarding school in Vorkata.

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Kuwajima says that the school is incredibly important for the Nenets. “Given that these children will form the core of the Nenets society in this region in the future, the school is the major turning point not only for the children but also the local Nenets community as a whole. This school functions as a catalyst for the integration of this region’s Nenets community into the Russian society in a globalized world.”

Instead of making traditional portraits, where the subject is isolated on a background, Kuwajima wanted to show the surrounding environment of the school. So he used a white background and lights, but he also included much of the surrounding rooms in the photographs.

Two girls wear traditional Nenets costumes at the boarding school.

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“The main theme of this story is the collision and mixing of two different cultures, and the backdrop and artificial light held up by the kids put an emphasis on the coexistence of two different worlds,” he says.

“Their lifestyle is changing from a nomadic one to a settled one—this is a more dynamic change than one minority group getting integrated into a majority. It’s about one minority group getting drawn into a huge globalized system.”

Two students pose in front of traditional and modern toys at the boarding school.

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Kuwajima says he hopes people will see “the complexity of the Nenets today, their dilemma, and the spread of … globalization even in the northern edges of Russia” and will ask themselves what it means.

“I’m not even sure if it’s necessarily good or bad,” he says, “but I think it’s important to notice the complexity of Nenets society and the changes that globalization is bringing.”

These photographs were published in the 2015 book “Tundra Kids.” View more of Ikuru Kuwajima’s work on his website.

To get an inside look at Kuwajima’s camera bag on assignment, view this Artifacts post on Proof.